Paulsen favors $46B small business tax cut

Republican U.S. Rep. Erik Paulsen is pushing a small business tax cut that will get a vote in the U.S. House this week.

Standing next to House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor at the news conference, Paulsen said the $46 billion temporary tax cut would apply to any company with fewer than 500 workers regardless of whether they hire on ne employees.

"In every economic recession that we've had in the past, small business has led the way [out]. We're not seeing that. And so the House is focused like a laser beam not only on energy costs, reducing regulations but giving small businesses the tax cut they need to invest in their people and purchase more capital equipment to grow jobs," Paulsen said.

But event's location at the Republican National Committee instead of the Capitol itself suggests the measure is more about the symbolic politics of backing small business, than it is about legislation that's likely to go to the president's desk.

Paulsen and the Republican leaders at the press conference did not address how the tax cut would be paid for. But in an interview last week, he told MPR that House Republicans would like to change how the costs of tax cuts are calculated.

Their proposal would assume economic growth results from tax cuts, and would offset the cost of the tax cuts with projected increased economic activity. In February, the House has passed legislation on requiring the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to use those assumptions, but the Democrat-controlled Senate hasn't taken up the legislation and is unlikely to.